The Buffalo Soldiers U-18 club team playing at this year’s Lake Placid Summit Classic is an amalgamation of some of the most talented lacrosse players from the Buffalo and Rochester areas, many of them likely bound for elite college programs.

But the squad represents something much greater than a group of skilled lacrosse players.

The team is dedicated to honoring the memory of Thomas Gardner, a former head coach of Orchard Park’s junior varsity team for years and the spearhead of the school’s summer program. Gardner tragically passed away in 1998, leaving a hole in the Western New York Lacrosse community.

“Tom was the head, heart and soul of Orchard Park lacrosse,” says Pat Lally, who played for Gardner in the late 1980s and is the organizer of the Buffalo Soldiers.

“He was all about playing hard, having fun with the sport, and playing with passion. He was the kind of guy that believed size didn’t matter, and he would never exclude anyone. He always made you feel like part of a family and he cared deeply about the players he coached. He’d do anything for them.”

In addition to eye-catching camouflage Rastafari-colored gear and jerseys, the team’s shirts feature the TG-34 logo – the tagline created to help brand his former coach and mentor’s legacy. Gardner wore the number 34 as a player at Orchard Park years ago.

The team name comes from a funny experience Lally and Gardner had together in the early 1990s when they attempted to assemble a box team to compete at an event in Rochester.

Determined to compete, the small pack of Buffalo natives took the floor to warm up. Just as they began warming up, Bob Marley’s classic reggae tune “Buffalo Soldiers” began playing over the loudspeakers.

“We all just looked at each other and laughed,” Lally says. “When it came time for a team name, it just made sense. All of this is in the memory of Tom Gardner.”

In addition to the U-18 squad, Lally has also organized a team to compete in the Men’s Open Division as well as a team for the Men’s Masters Division – teams made of plenty of men whose lives were impacted by Gardner.

Chris Tocin, coach of the U-18 Buffalo Soldiers, also played at Orchard Park. His approach to coaching the team, he says, is rooted in the philosophies Gardner instilled in him years ago.

“I didn’t know some of these kids before coaching this team,” Tocin says. “But just like Tommy, I’ll have their backs by the end of this experience.”

Though the Buffalo Soldiers U-18 team is stacked with some of the best from Section 5 and Section 6, Lally says the primary intention of bringing the team to Lake Placid is to create experience for the players that he and the coaches hope lasts a lifetime.

“Really, the Buffalo Soldiers are a byproduct of what Tommy wanted: all of the guys from our area to keep playing together,” Lally says.

“Eventually, these guys could be playing each other in college and we’re trying to help them become tight now. In what other sport can you get a group of guys heading to all these colleges and try to win a tournament together. … There’s definitely not a better place for it. You can escape everything else in life here, and once you make it here, you want to be here every year.”